Field Trips: Cinema Science with the Field Museum!

Tue, Nov 28th, 2017

The Field Museum heads to the Music Box Theatre on a few field trips! These educational and entertaining events combine film and cinema and go behind Hollywood. Join us to delve into the reality and science behind the silver screen!

Join The Field Museum at the Music Box Theatre for a special series of film screenings dedicated to diving into the science behind some of Hollywood’s greatest blockbusters. For each of these screenings The Field Museum will bring science professionals and lecturers to the Music Box Theatre to introduce the films and provide a forum for discussion following the film. So grab your backpack and your notebook for this amazing series that partners two great Chicago Institutions!

Pricing

Tickets are $11 each Music Box Member Tickets are $7 each

Movies & Showtimes for Field Trips: Cinema Science with the Field Museum!

The Fly

Featuring a discussion with DNA expert and Field Museum scientist Erica Zahnle

When scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) completes his teleportation device, he decides to test its abilities on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a housefly slips in during the process, leading to a merger of man and insect. Initially, Brundle appears to have undergone a successful teleportation, but the fly's cells begin to take over his body. As he becomes increasingly fly-like, Brundle's girlfriend (Geena Davis) is horrified as the person she once loved deteriorates into a monster.

Erica Zahnle is the lead educator for the Rice DNA Discovery Center–a permanent exhibition that helps Museum visitors explore the science behind DNA, and a research assistant in the Pritzker Lab. She is currently part of The Emerging Pathogens Project, generating sequences for DNA barcoding in bird species and identifying correlations of infection between avian hosts and some of their protozoan parasites. On weekdays she hosts "Talk to the Scientist Hour" in the DNA Discovery Center, a Q&A session that educates the public about the ongoing research in the Pritzker Lab.

Technical Information

Production Year: 1986

Country of Origin: United States

Language: English

Run Time: 96 mins

Format: 35mm

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

A FILM BY: Joe Johnston

WRITTEN BY: Stuart Gordon (story), Brian Yuzna (story)

STARRING: Rick Moranis, Matt Frewer, Marcia Strassman

Featuring a post film discussion with Field Museum expert Shauna Price

Rick Moranis stars as a preoccupied inventor who just can't seem to get his electro-magnetic shrinking machine to work. Then, when he accidentally shrinks his kids down to one-quarter-inch tall and tosses them out in the trash, the real adventure begins! Now the kids face incredible dangers as they try to make their way home through the jungle of their own backyard!

Shauna Price is an evolutionary biologist at the Field Museum who has studied ants for more than 15 years. She uses molecular and morphological data to understand how a group of ants from the Neotropics - turtle ants - have diversified in terms of their traits and number of species.

Technical Information

Production Year: 1989

Country of Origin: United States

Language: English

Run Time: 93 mins

Format: 35mm

Jaws

A FILM BY: Steven Spielberg

WRITTEN BY: Peter Benchley (screenplay), Carl Gottlieb (screenplay)

STARRING: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss

Featuring a post film discussion with Field Museum expert Kevin Feldheim.

When a young woman is killed by a shark while skinny-dipping near the New England tourist town of Amity Island, police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) wants to close the beaches, but mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) overrules him, fearing that the loss of tourist revenue will cripple the town. Ichthyologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and grizzled ship captain Quint (Robert Shaw) offer to help Brody capture the killer beast, and the trio engage in an epic battle of man vs. nature.

Kevin Feldheim is the A. Watson III Manager of the Pritzker Laboratory for Molecular Systematics and Evolution. His research focuses on inferring the mating system and population biology of sharks using genetic markers called microsatellites, although he is broadly interested in many organisms. Microsatellites are short, tandem repeats in DNA that are extremely useful in identifying individuals. In fact, these are the same types of genetic markers that are used in court cases and paternity tests. The Field Museum use these markers in their DNA lab to answer similar questions in other animals, plants, and fungi.